UPDATE: Victim identified in deadly Fall River fire

By: Chloe Leshner

cleshner@abc6.com

@cleshnerabc6

A Fall River woman who died in an a fire at her home early Sunday morning has been identified. 74-year-old Lillian Cordeiro was pronounced dead at a hospital Sunday. Fall River Acting Deputy Sean Flannery confirmed Monday that a firefighter who was hospitalized following the fire has been released after being treated for minor injuries. 

Officials say they had a few challenges fighting the fire, first the heat and humidity then finding the woman on the third floor and the source of the fire because of how many boxes and how much stuff the owner had collected in her home.

All is quiet now on Orswell Street but neighbors say it was a different story around 3 Sunday morning

"There was at least 5 fire trucks and 3 ambulances and about 9 squad cars here," says Laura Roies.

A father and son who live down the street called 911 after noticing the smoke coming from the house.

"I started seeing the flames in the window getting bigger and bigger," says Brian Costa.

Neighbors tell us the home owner, an elderly woman, lived there alone. They say she died later in the morning after firefighters rescued her.

"She stayed to herself a lot," says Roies.

Investigators tell us the fire was caused by an excessive use of extension cords. From the outside the damage looks minor, just windows and a part of the roof boarded up, but firefighters had a difficult time putting out the flames

"Crews arrived and did an aggressive interior attack and because of the heat of the night additional crews were called in for manpower," says District Chief Ambrose Smith.

Every unit in the city was rotating in and out. One firefighter was sent to the hospital for heat exhaustion and has since been released.

We’re told boxes filled the house which made getting to the woman a challenge.

"There was a lot of storage material inside the house, combustibles that contributed to the delay of the attack," says Chief Smith.

The state Fire Marshall says there were no working smoke detectors in the house, all outdated from the 1980’s.

©WLNE-TV / ABC6 2017